The author is greatly indebted to Mr. Carlos Tomaszewski for providing
information critical to making this paper possible.

Calculators made by Compucorp are extremely interesting
and wonderful calculating machines. Compucorp machines had a real style
about them, both in terms of their physical appearance, and their high-end
functionality. Technologically, Compucorp's calculators (and those
sold by OEM customers including Monroe, Deitzgen, Sumlock, IME, and Ricoh.)
were highly advanced, pushing the state of the art in large-scale
integrated circuit technology, as well as utilizing a very computer-like
architecture. Compucorp's unique architecture used a multi-chip general
purpose CPU (the precursor to a microprocessor) with specialized firmware
making up the personality of each different model of calculator.
The flexibility of the architecture allowed Compucorp to manufacture a wide
range of calculators for many different types of applications, including
scientific, statistical, financial, and even for surveying work. Compucorp's
later calculators blurred the line between calculator and computer, offering
highly-expandable calculator processors that could be connected to a diverse
range of peripheral devices to form what, for all intents and purposes,
was a small computer system.

Compucorp got its start the way that many high-tech companies
get started -- as a spin-off. Compucorp actually had its genesis in another
company, Wyle Laboratories, of El Segundo, California. In 1961, Wyle
Laboratories acquired a small company specializing in digital logic modules
and custom electronic systems. This company had two consultants named
Thomas Scuitto (an electronics designer, who designed the calculator)
and Matthew Alexander (who was the business side of the
team), that were working for them developing an electronic calculator.
Since the consultants were part of the team now, the calculator effort
simply migrated to Wyle Labs. A substantial amount of development had
already been done on the calculator project, enough that it was decided by
Wyle management to go ahead finish its development and bring it to market.
Frank Wyle, the President of Wyle Labs approved funding for completion
of the calculator to the tune of almost $1 million, which,
in 1962, was a great deal of money. Jack Rosenburg was brought in as the
Chief Engineer at Wyle, and was put in charge of the engineering aspects
of the acquired company, including the calculator project.
During Rosenburg's reign, he had brought in an engineer named Carlos
Tomaszewski. Prior to working for Rosenburg, Tomaszewski was working
at Wyle as the Chief Engineer of Wyle's Products Division, developing
data acquisition and telecommunications products. Tomaszewski's
role under Rosenburg was to spearhead the engineering work needed for
completion of the calculator project. During the course of the project,
disagreements between Rosenberg and Frank Wyle left Rosenburg frustrated,
and he left the company. With Rosenburg's departure, Tomaszewski assumed
Rosenburg's role as Chief Engineer. With a great deal of hard work from
everyone involved, the calculator project was completed. The calculator
became the Wyle Laboratories WS-01 Scientific.

The WS-01 was
quite an amazing machine for its time, utilizing a rotating magnetic
disk (remotely related to the hard-disk drives found in a PC today)
with six dedicated tracks (with each track having its own read/write head)
for storage of the working registers of the machine. A dedicated seventh
track contained a pre-recorded timing track that served as the master
clock for the logic of the calculator. The logic of the WS-01 was
formed using discrete transistors and diodes. The machine used a CRT
display that provided on-screen display of the six calculator registers, each
with a capacity of 24 digits. Unforuntately, there were reliability
problems with the magnetic disk storage device, and a redesign was done to
replace the unreliable disk with a form of solid state storage.
By late 1964, the "Wyle Scientific" Model WS-02 was introduced.
The primary design change between the WS-01 and the WS-02 was
replacement of the magnetic disk memory with a magnetostrictive
delay line for the working register storage.

The WS-02 was virtually identical physically to the
WS-01, and had exactly the same feature set. Electronically, the main
difference was changes to the logic to accomodate the delay line memory
versus the disk memory system, as well as to generate a master clock
for the calculator.

For both the WS-01 and the WS-02 Scientific
calculators,
the display showed the content of the three memory
registers, along with the entry register, the accumulator,
and a multiplier/quotient register. The machines provided
the standard four arithmetic functions, plus single-entry squaring and
square root. Both machines were designed to allow add-on peripheral devices
such as printers, external displays, a punched card reader, and paper-tape
reader/punch equipment. When equipped with the optional external punched
card reader, the machines were programmable via standard
IBM-style pre-scored punched cards that could be taped together to form
loops which allowed repetitive operations to be performed
automatically. The card reader could read both forward and backward, allowing
true branching and looping operations to be performed.

At the time that WS-02 was introduced, there weren't very many players
in the electronic calculator biz. Sumlock/Anita in England had their
Anita C/VIII,
Friden with their EC-130,
Mathatronics with the
Mathatron calculator, and Wang,
with their LOCI-2 machine
in the US; and Casio and Sharp in Japan with their early transistorized
calculators. Only Wang's LOCI-2 and the Mathatron were
programmable in any way. Wang's LOCI-2 was big, expensive, and somewhat
difficult to operate, even though it was technically more capable than
the Wyle machine. The Mathatron was a technological tour-de-force, leapfrogging
the state of the art, but the company that made it was a relative newcomer
to the market, without a lot of exposure at the time.

The WS-02 was marketed and sold until sometime in late '67
to early-'68, by which time the electronic calculator business had changed
radically, making it more and more difficult to sell the machine amidst
the competition. A project to develop a new calculator was started, but never
really made it off the ground, as Frank Wyle was reluctant to invest more in
the calculator business.

The inability to convince management that a new calculator
project was needed to replace the dataed WS-01/WS-02 machines
didn't mark the end of electronic calculators at Wyle Labs, though.
Sometime in late 1965, Wyle Labs was contacted
by Nippon Calculating Machine Co. (NCM), of Tokyo Japan.
NCM had been very successful
in the Japanese mechanical calculating machine market, and in July of '66,
entered the electronic calculator marketplace with the introduction of its own
desktop electronic calculator, the NCM Busicom 161. This calculator utilized
transistorized circuitry and a small (256 bit) magnetic core memory
for working register storage. Intrestingly, the Busicom 161 shares
a great deal of basic design methodology with the early calculators
made by Industria Macchine Elettroniche (IME) of Italy. There were
accusations by IME that the Busicom 161 was a cheaped-down copy of
its elegant and extremely well-built IME 24, but nothing ever really came of
it. Whether or not this was the case, the story appears to be lost in
time. The reality was that the Busicom 161 was significantly less-expensive
than other electronic calculators of the time, and was very successful.
However, NCM knew that it couldn't rest on its laurels, as the electronic
calculator market was expanding rapidly. There was a realization that
the market lifetime the 161, and a lower-cost introduction with less
capacity, the 141, was somewhat limited. NCM's management
wanted a more advanced electronic calculator, and relized that it may
not have all the expertise it needed to develop a more advanced
machine. A search was begun by NCM to seek someone that could
design and develop an advanced calculator for them.

The Wyle Laboratories AP-01 Arithmetic Processor

Wyle Laboratories had embarked on making more of a market for itself by
selling OEM products based on the Wyle WS-01 and WS-02 calculators. The
design of these machines was quite modular, and so Wyle offered components
of the calculators to OEM customers. For example, the "calculating engine"
of the WS-02 was offered as a standalone unit called the AP-01.
This system could accept commands
as if entered from a keyboard, and also had a coded output representation
that could be used to get results of calculations. All an OEM customer
had to do was add power, and interfaces to external equipment, and they
had the computing capability that could be applied to any number of different
applications including process control, data acquisition, and many others.
It was this aspect of Wyle Labs business that attracted
the attention of NCM.

The prospect of doing
calculator development for other companies was something that Frank
Wyle and the management team at Wyle Labs could get behind.
Such development work would keep the Wyle Labs calculator engineers
employed and busy, yet didn't involve all of the
overhead of maintaining a calculator sales, support, and service business.
There were thoughts that perhaps this role could be extended to other
calculator companies, potentially bringing in some well-needed cash, while
reducing overhead. Busicom representatives met with Wyle Labs, and soon
an agreement was forged by which Wyle Labs would develop a next-generation
calculator for Busicom, which Busicom would manufacture, market, and support
as its own advanced calculator.

There was great relief among Wyle Labs products division employees when
this deal was announced, and though there were some reductions in staff,
this development did allow many of the core engineering team to remain
employed. Work on the project begam immediately. Wyle's engineers
dusted off some of the concepts from the canceled follow-on to the WS-02,
along with making use of new integrated circuit technology to create the
design of the for NCM. The calculator design utilized a magnetostrictive
delay line similar to that used in the WS-02. The use of new DTL
(Diode-Transistor Logic) small-scale integrated circuits meant that the
calculator was smaller and faster, as well as more-reliable than the
earlier transistorized machines. This calculator design was licensed to
NCM/Busicom for manufacture and sale by exclusively by NCM. The
calculator was a five-function machine, with square root and two memory
registers, utilizing a CRT display with vector-generated segmented digits
(versus the beautiful sine/cosine generated digits of the WS-01/WS-02
calculators). The machine was introduced by NCM in November of 1967 as the
Busicom 202, and sold solely through NCM's network of distributors.

While the Busicom calculator project kept Wyle Labs involved
in calculator technology, during the development of the project for NCM, Wyle
management kept steady pressure to move away from the calculator and
in-house developed data processing equipment business, deciding instead to
focus its Products Division on computer-based data collection and
instrumentation systems, utilizing various commercially-marketed
mini-computers versus its internally-developed data processing devices. Even
though the numbers brought in by the calculator part of the Products Division
were better, they still were not good enough, and it soon became clear
that the days of calculator development work at Wyle Labs were running out.

Busicom 207 Calculator

The 202 was a good start on the advanced calculator that
NCM wanted. However, Busicom wanted to advance its line of calculators
with ever-more sophisticated machines. Wyle Labs was signed up in mid-'67
to develop machines with additional capabilities. The resulting machines
were outgrowths of the technology used in the 202, and became the Busicom 207
and 2017 calculators. These machines provided additional memory registers
for use in more complex calculations. The Busicom 207 came with with seven
memory registers, and the
Busicom 2017
with seventeen memory registers, both introduced in February of 1969.
The 207 and 2017 calculators used a CRT display similar to that of the 202,
and were similarly programmable via a built-in punched card reader.

The Busicom 2017 Calculator

As the calculator development projects for NCM wound
down in mid-1968, Wyle Labs management decided to abandon
any further business involvement in the calculator field. At the time,
the last of the NCM project was transitioning out of Wyle to NCM,
and it seemed a good time to make a clean break from the calculator
business. NCM/Busicom was notified that there would be no more
calculator development work done for them, or anyone else, and the
agreement between the two companies was nullified. As it turned out, it
wasn't such a big deal for Busicom, because it was already working on
forging a relationship with a fledgeling Large Scale Integration IC
manufacturer in the US.

This final decision by Wyle management to get out of the
calculator business completely was of deep concern to a group of employees
involved in Wyle's calculator business, who felt
that the calculator market still held the potential for a successful business.
By mid-'68, this group of folks decided they wished to venture out on their
own to form a company that could focus on the electronic calculator
marketplace. Among these people were Mr. Elmer Easton, who was the prime
instigator of the move to form a new company, as well having some financial
resources that could potentially get the new business rolling. Easton and
a core group of business-minded folks from Wyle Labs decided to put together
a proposal for Wyle Labs management to spin off a new independent company
to design advanced electronic calculators using the latest technology.

The proposal was drafted and presented to Wyle Labs management sometime
in the late summer of 1968. Frank Wyle, the owner and President
of Wyle Laboratories, blessed the proposal, and Wyle Labs became a major
initial investor in the new company. Mr. Easton was named the President of the
company. On the engineering side, Carlos Tomaszewski also joined the effort,
along with a group of other talented businessmen, engineers, technicians
and support staff.

The group of folks that left Wyle Labs formed
"Computer Design Corporation", (hereafter referred to as "CDC", with
apologies to the former Control Data Corporation), which was incorporated in
September of 1968. Straight away, CDC did some top-secret computing-related
development work for the US government with early MOS(Metal Oxide
Semiconductor) small and medium-scale integrated circuits.
The government was very interested in integrated circuit technology for
a wide range of military and intelligence applications, and CDC was provided
some funding by the government to develop electronic computing technology
related to cryptography. This work proceeded at a rapid pace, since
many of the concepts had already been developed as part of the calculator
work that was done at Wyle Labs.

Production prototypes of the two machines were
shown to Monroe management in December 1969, and were warmly received.
The deal with Monroe was a go.

Full-scale production of a number of
different models of calculators tailored to specific disciplines
(Statistics, Business, Scientific) began immediately. All
calculator design was done by CDC. CDC built the machines, with some
aspects of the manufacturing farmed out to contractors, such as circuit board
manufacturing and various other components (mechanical, cabinet
manufacturing). Finished circuit board testing was also farmed out to
contractors that used automated circuit board testing equipment
to verify the proper functioning of the circuit boards.
Final assembly of the calculators was performed by CDC
at a separate leased building located in Santa Monica, Ca., at the
intersection of West Olympic Blvd. and Centinela Ave. Completed units
were burned in for 24 to 48 hours in a high-temperature environment
before shipment to final distributors.

The electronic design of each of the first generation
CDC-designed calculators was common between all of the models, with the only
difference between
the scientific, business, and statistical calculators was the microcode in
the masked ROM that made up the 'program' that operated the calculator, and
the layout of the keyboard to provide specific functions depending
on the specialty of the calculator microcode. Printing calculators used
special interface chips (part of the HTL chipset) to provide the printing
functionality. The drum and hammer type impact printers were
supplied by Seiko Instruments in Japan, under an OEM agreement.
Initial versions of the printers were noisier than desired, requiring
some minor design changes to be implemented that used softer materials
for the print drum drive gears.

The success of the marketing of the calculators by
Monroe and Deitzgen had CDC doing very well, providing funding to grow
the company in rather dramatic fashion.
By mid-1970, it had a number of customers that were successfully selling
the company's advanced calculators, including Monroe, Deitzgen, and Seiko, and Sumlock.

The success of Computer Design Corp. attracted
the attention of the parent company of Monroe, Litton Industries.
Merger discussions began, but the two parties could not agree on terms of
a merger. The discussions ended with no deal. At this point, Computer
Design Corp. management decided that it had sufficient resources to market its calculators
under their own brand. In mid-1971, a division called Compucorp
was created, and CDC began marketing and selling their own calculators
under the Compucorp brand name.

The Compucorp 140 Statistician Calculator

The first series of calculators sold under
the Compucorp name was called the 100-series. The line
included a wide range of machines, all based on the same basic design using
the HTL chipset, with the major functionality of each machine
defined by the microcode burned into ROM. The 100-series machines focused
on Scientific (with the Model 110,
110G,
110/X,
120, 121, 122,
122E,
125 and 125E Scientist calculators), Statistical (with Model 100,
130, 131, 132, 135, 140,
141, 142, 145 and 145E Statistician calculators), and Surveying
(Model 155)
applications. There were two basic types of 100-series machines, a display-only
calculator using Nixie-tube numeric display, and a printing-only model that
used the Seiko drum-type impact printer to record calculations.

Introduced a while after the 100-series calculators, the 200-series came
to be. The 200-series calculators still used the HTL chipset, but new
microprogramming allowed the machines to address markets that weren't
addressed by the 100-series calculators.

The Compucorp 250-1 Bond Trader Calculator

The 200-series calculators focused mainly on
getting Compucorp calculators into the financial applications realm. The
200-series machines retained the desktop, AC-powered form-factor of
the 100-series machines, and continued to use either Nixie tube
numeric displays, or drum-type impact printers. A wide range
of models made up the series, including the 250 and
250-1 Bond Trader (used in financial market trading applications) machines;
the 260, 261, and 263 Accountant calculators; the model 271 and 275 Banker
calculators; the model 280, 281, and 285 Financier (with loan/mortgage type
functions); and the model 291, and 295 Treasurer machines. Most all of the
programmable 200-Series machines were offered with extended memory, which
doubled the amount of program/memory storage space available. This upgrade
involved simply plugging in an additional memory board. The models which
came from the factory with this extended memory added an "E" at the end
of the model number. For example, a Model 275 Banker with extended memory
would be designated a Model 275E Banker.

The Compucorp 275 "Banker" Calculator

During 1972, while Compucorp's salespeople were out
selling the 100 & 200-series machines, engineering was working on the next
generation of Compucorp calculators. A new chipset was designed, taking
advantage of rapidly-increasing levels of integration to reduce the number
of chips needed to implement a calculator as well as add aditional capabilities.
Tom Scuitto, who had left Wyle in 1966 to sail around the world with his
family, provided consulting to Compucorp to help with the development of
the new chipset. This chipset was called the "ACL" chipset.
The ACL chipset was used in the 2nd generation of Compucorp and
OEM partners' calculators. The ACL chipset was initially fabricated by AMI,
but later, Texas Instruments was added as a second source to AMI, both
for additional production capacity, as well as to safeguard Compucorp
from any problem with AMI being a single source for their bread and butter, as
well as creating some competition to help keep the IC costs under control.
The chips made by TI had "TCL" part numbers. One interesting thing to note
is that the Texas Instruments-made chips (TCL part numbers) have
different pinouts than the AMI-made "ACL" chips, though logically they
are identical to the AMI chips. The pinout of the chip was determined
by the chip design, and the AMI and TI designs were different enough that
the pinouts varied between the two manufacturers. Compucorp's circuit
boards were designed so that either maker's chip could be used, with
slightly different mounting locations for the TI- and AMI-made chips.

There were two lines of 2nd generation Compucorp
calculators using the ACL/TCL chipset. The 300-series brought Compucorp
calculators into the "handheld" realm. These machines would fit in a
hand, but were a pretty serious handful. The term "portable" more aptly
describes the form of the machines.

The Compucorp 344 Statistician CalculatorImage Courtesy Alex Knight

The 300-series machines provided similar functionality
to the desktop 100-series machines, but packed the functions into
a smaller, easily portable, battery-operated package. The advances
in integrated circuit technology that were incorporated into the ACL
chipset allowed a practical advanced battery-powered calculator to be made.
The machines included a battery compartment into which either
disposable D-cell batteries, or rechargeable Nickel-Cadmium cells
could be installed. An external power-pack provided ability to
operate on AC power, as well as serving as a charger if NiCad batteries
were installed in the machine. Due to the fragile nature of Nixie tube
displays, the display technology used in the 300-series machines changed
to the new Burroughs Panaplex II seven-segment planar gas-discharge display.
The Panaplex display was more durable, less expensive, and could be made
smaller to fit within the confines of a 'handheld' device.

The 300-series
calculators were marketed both by Compucorp, as well as through
Monroe. The machines in the series included the Model 320, 320G, 322, 322G,
324G, 326, and 326G Scientist calculators; the Model 340, 342,
and 344 Statistician machines;
the Model 360 and 360/65 Bond
Trader/Financial calculators; and the Model 354 Surveyor. Some of the
programmable 300-series machines provided the ability to connect a specialized
cassette recorder to in order to provide off-line storage for programs and
data, a real advantage when volatile RAM was used to store programs.
Along with cassette tape program and data storage, there were numerous
other interfaces for the 300-series calculators.
Peripheral options included the Model 300 I/O Writer,
the Model 310 Data Coupler Interface, and the
Model 395 Teleprinter-Serial I/O Interface.

The Monroe 1860

Along with the 300-series "handheld" calculators,
the ACL chipset was also put to use in a series of high-end programmable
desktop calculators designated as the 400-Series. These calculators
included the Model 425 (Scientific), 445 (Statistical), and 485 (Financial)
machines. Compucorp marketed the 400-series machines as computing systems,
including a calculator "CPU" connected to peripherals such as floppy
disc drives, line printers, and even CRT terminals. The 400-Series
calculators were also marketed by Monroe as the 1800-Series, which
included the Model 1810, 1830,
1860,
and 1880 desktop calculators. The computer-like features of the 400-series
calculators provided very flexible peripheral interfacing, allowing for
wide range of peripheral devices to be connected to the calculator.
All of the 400-series calculators came with a built-in 21-column,
three line-per-second drum impact printer, and a magnetic card reader/writer.
The Compucorp 485 (also sold by Monroe as the Model 1830) was a
general-purpose desktop calculator, with full programmability and I/O
interfacing capabilities. The Model 425 Scientific calculator (also sold
by Monroe as the 1860) provided advanced scientific calculating capabilities,
including built-in trigonometric functions. Lastly, the Model 445 (sold by
Monroe as the Model 1880), was designed for advanced statistical applications.
All of the Compucorp 400-series calculators could be combined with peripherals
and specialized software to form a fully-featured computing system.
The peripherals from the 300-series calculators would interface with the
400-series calculators, along with a line of 400-series specific peripherals
that could push the calculator firmly into small computer territory.
These peripheral options included:
Mark-Sense Card Reader (Model 490);
Dual 8" floppy disc data storage systems (Model 491-2);
Cassette Tape Unit (Model 492);
X-Y Plotter (Model 493);
IBM Selectric I/O Typewriter Interface (Model 495);
and a 1/2-inch Magnetic Tape Drive (Model 497). Outfitted with these
the right selection of peripherals, a 400-series calculator could serve
as the core of a capable business computing system.

During the course of 1972, the calculator market
began to change quite dramatically. Single-chip calculator
implementations were becoming commonplace from makers like Texas
Instruments and Mostek. The prices for basic four-function calculators
dropped dramatically over a very short period of time. Battery-powered,
LED-display, handheld "four-banger" calculators became mainstream.
The dramatic changes in the marketplace began to put
pressure on makers of higher-end machines to reduce their prices.
Then, like a bolt out of the blue, Hewlett Packard introduced its
ground breaking HP-35, a rechargeable battery-powered, "shirt pocketable",
handheld scientific calculator. The introduction of the HP-35
marked the beginning of a calculator market shake-out, with many of the
eager start-up calculator manufacturers falling by the wayside. Even
some of the larger players in the calculator business started to suffer.
Wang Laboratories, one of the major players in the early days
of electronic calculator technology, dropped out of the calculator market
by the mid 1970's as a result of the shake-out. The shake-out hit
Compucorp (and it's partners) pretty hard. It became more and more
difficult for the salespeople to sell a large, power-hungry desktop
or "luggable" calculator that had a selling price in the $600 to $1200
range when anyone (who could stand to wait for delivery due to the
rampant demand) could go out and buy an HP-35, which was much smaller,
lighter, and nearly as capable (though lacking programmability), for a mere
$395. Soon afterward, Texas Instruments introduced its own handheld scientific
calculator, undercutting HP's price.

The Compucorp 402 Business Computer System

In an attempt to leverage its calculator business, yet
move more toward the new market of small business computing, Compucorp marketed
three bundled systems based on the 400-series calculator architecture.
These bundles were called the Model 402 Business Computer System, the
Model 403 Data Collection System, and the Model 450 Computing Calculator
System. The 402 Business Computer System packaged a Model 485 calculator
with the 491-2 dual floppy disc drive system, and a Digital Equipment (DEC)
LA-36 120-column, 30cps dot-matrix printer, along with a software operating
system called DOS-K that provided powerful file-oriented data handling
capabilities for the very computer-like system.

The Compucorp 403 Data Collection System

The Model 403 Data Collection System was
marketed as a multi-user data entry system
to capture data entered by date entry clerks to magnetic tape for processing
on mainframe computer systems. The 403 utilized a 400-series calculator
as the CPU and provided connections for up to four CRT-display data entry
terminals. The system came with the Model 497 1/2" magtape drive, to which
data entered on the terminals would be written for transfer to the larger
computer.
Also included was the Model 491-2 dual floppy disc drive system.
The data entry forms definitions were stored on floppy
discs to make it easy to change forms for differing data entry operations.

The Compucorp 450 Computing Calculator System

Lastly, the 450 Computing Calculator System was a multi-purpose system that
could be configured for Business, Scientific, or Statistical applications.
The 450 utilized a special CPU unit, based on the 400-series calculator
architecture, but packaged as a monolithic unit that had no keyboard, printer,
or magnetic card drive, and utilized much different firmware than
the calculators. This monolithic CPU was called the 3000-series
microprocessor. The CPU provided more RAM and ROM memory capability than
the calculators could provide, allowing for more complex programs to run
on the system. The systems came standard with 8K-bytes of user
RAM, dual floppy disc drives, dual telecommunications controllers, keyboard
console, magnetic card reader, and what was called a "System Printer",
identical to the printer used the 400-series calculators. All of this was
packaged into a desk-like form-factor. Along with the hardware, the DOS-K
or DDD disk operating systems were available, along with an assembly-language
processor called AL400 that could be used by programmers to develop complex
applications for the system. Options for the system included a CRT-display
unit, and a DEC LA-36 printer.

Even with the change of focus toward providing
computing solutions, Compucorp's direct sales business strategy never
really generated enough revenue to sustain the company. Sales had begun a
slow decline through the early '70's, and by the mid-1970's, the losses
incurred from the direct sales efforts forced Compucorp to exit the direct
sales of its line of calculators, returning to selling its machines
through OEM customers such as Monroe, Deitzgen, and others. In 1975,
after producing nearly 300,000 calculators (including those made for OEM
customers), the Compcorp Division of Computer Design Corp. filed for
Chapter 11 reorganization as a result of Security Pacific National Bank
declaring a loan to Compucorp in default.
The terms of Compucorp's loan were that the bank would assume all assets
of the company in the event of default.

During the time that the bank assumption of Compucorp's
assets occurred, the company's business strategy was
changing yet again, with the advent of Compucorp's
word processing systems. The word processing market
was ripe for picking, however, with the finacial
troubles, it became impossible for the company to further develop this
avenue of business.

By October, 1976, Computer Design Corp. was in deep
financial trouble. On October 22, 1976, the company announced
that it was shutting down operations, laying off employees, and
seeking bankruptcy protection from creditors. Shortly thereafter, a group
of employees, outside investors, and European OEM customers that saw the
opportunities that small business computing
and word processing could provide, got together and purchased the assets
of Computer Design Corp. from Security Pacific Bank, and resumed business under
the Compucorp name. The reconstituted Compucorp continued to make
calculators for sale by OEM customers, along with developing
new products directed at word processing. A hardware platform based
on the new Zilog Z-80 microprocessor was developed, along with an advanced
software environment called Omega. Omega included a very early networking
technology that allowed workstations to share data over the network. The
Omega system was marketed successfully in the late '70's and early '80's.
It was sold under the Compucorp label, as well as via an OEM relationship
with Exxon Data Systems under the Vydec brand.

In 1981, after a failed acquisition of Compucorp by Philips Data Systems, a
financier named Bernard Katz acquired majority financial control
of Compucorp. To control costs, the engineering employees of Compucorp
were encouraged to form a separate engineering company. Concurrently,
Philips Data Systems wanted to contract a networking technology development
for its products. Compucorp's engineering management formed a new
company called Retix, to leverage the networking technology know-how
gained through the development of Omega. Philips provided funding to Retix
for the development of networking interfaces for Philips' products, as
well as development of software that implemented an ISO-compliant network stack.
The network stack became a product that was successfully marketed by Retix
to a wide range of customers in the US, Europe, and Japan. With
Compucorp's engineering talent either leaving, or moving on with Retix,
no further development effort in Compucorp's calculator technology was made.
By 1984, with the advent of IBM's "PC", and the market for calculators
reduced to a "short-list" of players such as Sharp, Casio, Canon, TI,
and Hewlett Packard, the market for Compucorp's products was no longer viable,
and Compucorp ceased operations.

There are many names of companies that participated in
the calculator boom, and suffered in the later 'bust' of the calculator
market...names like Bowmar, MITS, Cintra, Wang, Tektronix, Sony, and many
more. Not all of these were complete victims, but certainly their forays
into the calculator marketplace were folded up during the calculator wars
of the mid-1970's. To this author, Compucorp was one of the more tragic
losses of those times. Compucorp designers were truly ahead of their time,
designing essentially the precursor to the microprocessor with their
calculator 'core' chipsets at a time when the notion of a microprocessor
simply didn't exist. Unfortunately, market pressures and the rapid rate
of change in calculator technology forced many technologically advanced
players out of the market. Sadly, Compucorp ended up being a victim of
the times.